Philly Cheesesteak

My only experience of Philadelphia so far has been from the inside of a train station, but thanks to a friend of ours who is a native we recently got to sample its most famous culinary creation, the cheesesteak.  This is a sandwich (in the American sense, which encompasses a broad church of bread-based foods, in this case it means it comes on a long roll) filled with thinly sliced steak and cheese, at the very least, with added extras depending on who makes it.

Our friend was kind enough to bring us two different kinds, one from Pat's, which has widespread reputation for good cheesesteaks (and is supposed to have been founded by one of the inventors back in the day), and one from Max's which is her personal favourite.

Max's was modestly wrapped in paper, Pat's was more promotional.

Having tried both of these I can honestly say that they were both fantastic but Max's clearly blew Pat's out of the water.  Apparently Pat's use processed cheese (only in America!) while Max's uses real cheese, and it really makes a difference.  And while Pat's added only onions Max's added some kind of tomatoey sauce which moistened everything up delightfully.  Here's a cross-section, Max's on the left, Pat's on the right.

Max's reminded me very much of eating a good steak and cheese pie back in New Zealand, which isn't surprising because there are many similarities.  Given that meat pies are almost entirely lacking in this part of the world, it's obvious that things like the cheesesteak fill the gap.

It's also clear that the City of Brotherly Love knows what its doing.  I've ordered cheesesteaks before in other parts of the country, even the state, and the genuine article is just in a league of its own.  I certainly know what I'll be eating next time I go to Philadelphia!

Philadelphia station

It was planes, trains and automobiles for Mrs Walles and I as we made our way to Washington D.C.  We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:30am and as soon as it was light drove to the airport at Harrisburg, parked the car in long term parking and then took a ten minute cab ride to the train station down town.  Later we would pass the car again on the train, as the railroad runs right past the airport, within spitting distance of where we parked the car.  Ah, well, such is life.

Intercity passenger rail in the US was consolidated about 40 years ago into one government-owned corporation known as Amtrak (communism!), which runs just a few services around the country.  We're very lucky really to be able to take the train as we did - some states aren't served at all.

Anyway, our train trip was in two parts, one to Philadelphia on a very sparsely populated train and then on to D.C. on a very full one.  From Harrisburg the train runs through pleasant farmland and relatively small towns (the exception being Lancaster) until it hits the outlying suburbs of Philadelphia.  Then the view deteriorates as you get closer to the inner city, but that doesn't matter so much because once you reach the station your breath is taken away.

This is Philadelphia's 30th St station.  If it looks familiar that's because it crops up on screen sometimes.  It is the station featured in the opening scenes of the film Witness where the heroine sees the murder take place.  It's also a junction for Amtrak, and according to Wikipedia the third busiest station in their system.  We had to wait a while here so we got some lunch and I looked around and took some pictures.

Opened in the thirties, it is an enormous cathedral of transportation.  The scale is hard to capture with a camera.  The pictures above are just part of the main hall of the station.  In the bottom right of the second one you can make out a tall, dark statue.  It's a memorial to railroad workers lost in combat and it looks tiny in that picture, but here's a closer view showing it towering over waiting passengers.

It's a grand piece of architecture, with a lot of neoclassical influence.  In an adjacent hall one of the walls is covered with an enormous sculpted panel entitled The Spirit of Transportation.

 

Pretty heroic stuff.  But, impressive as it was, even it paled by comparison with what I saw once we arrived in Washington.  But that's a story for another day.